Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Philadelphia: Dialogue with Member of the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities and Cop Watch LA - Sunday

Come and hear Joaquin Cienfuegos in a discussion about Copwatch LA and the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities.

Cop Watch LA is a program dedicated to the struggle that will end police terrorism through collecting information on and observing police activity, by offering support to those caught in the criminal injustice system, fighting for change without a reformist consciousness, and working side-by-side with oppressed communities to create revolutionary alternatives to policing, prisons, and all systems of domination, oppression and exploitation. (from their mission statement)

Here in Philadelphia with a new mayor elected largely on a stop and frisk platform and a new police comissioner with a long track record of infiltration/snitch programs and political repression. Even just this year, cops have killed at least 3 in Philly. That’s after killing 15 in2007 and 20 in 2006. Stop and Frisk will no doubt only add legal institutional protection to the daily street level beatdowns, harrasment that many Philadelphians already know too well.

Please join us Sunday, February 3rd at LAVA for a discussion on some grassroots, autonomous checks on state violence!

Revolutionary Autonomous Communities

Who we are. What we believe. What we fight for.

We are a revolutionary federation of community councils and liberatedspaces based in occupied communities made up of oppressed people ofcolor. We are a horizontal organization building self-sustainabilityand creating the structure, strategy, and program for change throughdirect participatory forms of organizing and a decision-making processbased on consensus. We stand against all forms of oppression:imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, fascism,heterosexism and the domination of human overhuman & human over all living things including mother earth. Webelieve and we fight for autonomy, self determination, selforganization and the self defense of our communities.

Our strategy for Decolonization, Land and Liberty includes outreach,popular and political education, direct action, community programs,empowerment, support, , physical training and mutual aid, so peoplecan build self reliance and gain the skills, resources and theexperience to liberate themselves. In striving for freedom, we work todecolonize our minds by embracing our indigenous roots and practices.We fight for land! "Peace without land and liberty is not Peace."

Revolution comes from the people not a vanguard party; it is anindividual and collective process where we destroy the system while wecreate change within ourselves and the world. The best way to show oursolidarity to the people of the world is to bring the war home, and tobring down amerikkkan imperialism while we struggle to buildinternationalism and intercommunalism.

We fight for freedom and won't settle for less!

ALL POWER THROUGH THE PEOPLE!!!!!!

rac@riseup.net

We're the Guerrila Chapter of Cop Watch Los Angeles.

We're made up of individuals from different hoods, looking to build a base in our own communities while we help create a mass movement to stop police terrorism against our peoples.

We are called the Guerrilla Chapter:-We have full unity with the mission of Cop Watch LA-We carry out the work of Cop Watch LA as a tactic-We connect what we're doing to other social justice organizations we have unity with-We build alliances-We support families who are victims of the police-We want to create a culture of direct action against he police state-We hope that people can take up this movement and tactic on their own-We want to inspire people to defend themselves-We do Know Your Rights trainings-We fundraise for our community programs and our communities-We are grassroots-We are all working class people of color from the hood-We train and build the level of combativity in ourselves and our peoples-We want self-determination and the self-organization of our neo-colonies-We change ourselves in the process of changing the conditions in our communities-We study, and we promote popular and political education-We are members of the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities

The Guerrilla Chapter of Cop Watch LA feels it is important to not only discuss the problems that our communities are facing but to actively challenge them and change them. We exist for that purpose, while we build up our autonomous communities it is important to also connect these ideas to others and to build the fighting capacity of the people. The Guerrilla Chapter supports other communities who want to do the same type of work, we can provide whatever resources we have, the basic training and support for people to resist and build. We have believe in the principles of mutual aid and that one of our best defenses is our solidarity with others. We are not a vanguar party organization, we will not impose ourselves on communities, we have much more to learn from the people than we have to teach. Overall our purpose is to fight for land and liberty. We want freedom!